Small Town Science- The disgusting food challenge USA

Everyone knows that America has an obesity "epidemic", although from what I've heard Scotland and Australia are catching up. There's also a whole host of culturally relevant foods I felt I should have the misfortune of exposing myself to, so we walked down to Circle K and shelled out $17 for that pile o' crap you see above. I wanted a copy of Playboy to make the experience even more disturbing but the guy ID'd me and Oregon's homeless problem has dissuaded me from carrying my passport in public. They have sticky fingers, you know.

I decided to go about this in a somewhat scientific manner, instead of just picking and flitting between foods. I opened the packets and took a deep, evaluating sniff before reluctantly surrendering to the food stuff. Each mouthful was evacuated with a swish of Mountain Dew, although I decided to be ladylike and not use the sick bucket I'd latched onto.

Here we go...

a) Smell
b) Texture
c) Taste
d) Would I willingly eat this again?


1) Mountain Dew
a) kind of lemony
b) overly fizzy to the point of pain
c) like watered down Sprite...but worse
d) No.

2) All American Beef & Cheese (stick of meat and a stick of cheese)
a) like an old cheese and ham sandwich
b) Horrible. Truely Foul. Like chewing a shoe and pus in one mouthful.
c) See answer to b
d) No. Not even for the novelty value of stick food.

3) Slim Jim Original
a) gaggy
b) insanely tough. Rolled up piece of leather
c) Go lick a McDonalds grill at closing time. You're close.
d) No.
bonus- perfect consistency to make a riding crop

4) Hostess Cup Cakes
a) sickly with a chemical afterglow
b) Not too bad. Got into every mouth crevice imaginable.
c) Meh.
d) If there was no other source of sugar on earth.

5) Candy Corn
a) When Andy and I went fishing, we put this weird sweet stuff on the bait to disguise the cigarette smell. Candy Corn smells just like that.
b) Was expecting chewy. Got indescribable fall aparty
c) Fudge gone wrong
d) Yes.

6) Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
a) Peanutty
b) Too soft. Gag-worthy soft.
c) REALLY sugary. The chocolate got lost in a sea of peanut butter
d) Yes

7) Jerky Chew Teriyaki Shredded Beef Jerky
a) Fish food
b) Sawdust. Would not form anything remotely chewable in my mouth
c) This stuff looks like rolling baccy and smells like fish food. It's supposedly made of cow, but judging by the taste is just made from the crates they ship beef in.
d) No. NEVER.

8) Hot Pocket Ham N' Cheese
a) greasy ham stench.
b) Disturbingly soft. No dental traction whatsoever
c) Trashy? The cheese was far too liquid, the bread was like raw pizza dough and I don't want to recall that meat again
d) Maybe. I'd have to be desperate and it would have to be free.
lab note- this thing is the French crepe's evil twin

9) Hostess Twinkies
a) Corn syrupy
b) Wallpaper paste. I don't understand how something so solid in appearance can do that
c) Bizarre. Bypassed sweet straight into sickly territory. Foul throughout.
d) Oh Jesus No. They say these things survive nuclear blasts, but I sure as hell hope not.

10) Lucky Charms Cereal
a) My first reaction was "small children?" followed by "Leprechaun piss?"
b) chalky when dry. Pleasantly crunchy when wet
c) Meh, better with milk but still meh. The "marshmallow" wasn't mashmallowy
d) Maybe. By this time the Mountain Dew was beginning to affect my judgement.

11) Wrigley's LUSH Tropical Gum
a) Overpowering. Spill a bottle of Surf Tropical detergent in a Lush soap shop and you're about there.
b) Crumbly. Then Drooly. Then just normal gummy.
c) Fruity. Much less offensive that the smell let on.
d) Maybe. It's bite was pretty aggressive, but the actual taste wasn't too bad.

So there you have it. The disgusting food stuffs available at a Circle K store, as consumed and described by me. I've yet to try a corn dog, but there's two months in Hawaii for that... *shudder*

La-nd of the BRAVE, helpful and chubby

Apologies- I didn't get everything sorted before I got on my plane from Narita and there wasn't an internet cafe at LAX. In fact, tbh, L.A Airport was pretty shit.

Last day in Tokyo was good. I bought enough super cute writing paper to last me for life (I will literally be writing gym notes for my kids on this stuff. Don't be surprised if your invite to my funeral is written on Hello Kitty stuff covered in strawberries. A combination of lugging around heavy bags and sleeping on a youth hostel mattress had royally fucked my back and so, after spending 20 minutes establishing that it wasn't a brothel, I went and got a massage. It was HEAVENLY. They make you wear pyjamas and then lay towels over you so they never directly touch your body and then the man got to work pushing my back into alignment and making more cracking noises than a tap dancer in a pile of lolly sticks. He said in very broken English that judging by the state of my back I must be a very hard worker. He then nearly put his own back out getting my suitcase back down the stairs.

They gave me stamps on a loyalty card, so now I HAVE to go back to Tokyo :D

My flight over was fantastic though because I somehow got upgraded to premium economy so I had a chair with lots of interesting adjusting buttons and sat next to an executive of an eco friendly lighting company called Kevin. Kevin gave me a fantastic aerial tour of California ("there's wine country, that's the Hollywood sign, that's Beverly Hills" etc) whilst I sat and acted like a tourist the whole time (asking if the fog was snow). I didn't sleep well though and got to LA having had around 2 hours kip. The sunshine outside the terminal was nice, but I despite my long wait between flights I didn't want to take a cab down to Venice Beach out of fear of drifting out of conciousness and waking up with nothing but my hairclips.

Sajan- Burger King in America is horrible! This country is weird!

I refuse to call the transport I got from LA to Portland a plane. It was a bus with wings from the 70s. But I managed to sleep for another 40minutes on it, and it got in slightly early, so I caught an earlier bus into Corvallis.

And here I am, in a hippy coffee shop in small town America. The only way I can really describe it is that it's like living in a weird mirror. I think I actually understand it less that Tokyo. Although I did see a llama...